NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

'Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.'   ~Jack Welch - an American retired business executive, author , and chemical engineer. I’m always pushing the wrong button to unlock the car door, especially if it is pouring rain or freezing cold. The picture of the lock securely snapped shut,   tells my brain that the doors are locked and so I push it! To no avail! in the meantime any passengers waiting to get in the car, either drown or freeze to death. Now if I have time to actually think it out, I know that the it isn’t telling me the car is locked and that I should use it. It is saying that in order to lock the car, I need to push it. The forward arrow and the two parallel lines on an audio recorder are equally puzzling to me. I can never remember if the arrow says the audio is playing or if it says it is stopped and I need to use it to actually get audio. Now if someone [me!] has muted the audio track,   confusion really sets in.  One d...

“Your theology & your life are two sides of the same coin.” You may not agree with this statement but it is one that has become clearer and clearer to me over the years. Now I’m not talking about what you think your theology is or should be. I’m talking about what is really is - and that often isn’t what we think. I have said before on this blog that our bank account shows what is really important to us. For example, mine shows regular payments to a gym. Now that could mean one if any number of things: that I find the gym fun, that I am responsible for keeping my body is tiptop shape, that my mobility is important to chase kids, go shopping, volunteer at a shelter, etc., etc. Whatever's the reason, it reflects my theology. Where does my disposable income go? Is it spent on eating out, on entertainment? Is it spent on books? Or perhaps on the latest digital toy or the newest fashion? Is it used to make the world a more just and equitable place? And if it is, just how mu...

‘Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.’ - Senator Robert F. Kennedy   Egg sandwiches came up in casual conversation the other day, especially what a pain it was when the shell refused to peel off easily. We all loved them but hated the thought of struggling with removing the shells. If only there was a way the ensure an easy removal! As we were bemoaning this fact, one of the group spoke up, “Why are you trying to peel the shell off? The easy thing to do is to simply cut the hard boiled egg in half and remove the insides with a spoon.” We all looked at her with varying degrees of surprise and suspicion.   However shortly thereafter I was confronted with just the kind of hard boiled egg we had been talking about and in desperation decided to try her method, It worked brilliantly, proving once again the saying th...

I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s, in a culture that KNEW that you didn’t wear white before the 24th of May weekend or after Labour Day! Why this was so was never explained, nor did I ever question why. To this day, I still find it impossible to wear white outside those boundaries.   Yes, I have tried! Only to end up taking the offending garment off because it made me feel so uncomfortable.   Even when visiting the southern hemisphere during ‘their’ summer, I still could not bring myself to ‘wear white’ because although the weather was right, the names of the months weren’t. And YES, I realize this makes no sense, that neither the season, nor the temperature, matters! If this tradition, that is so obviously flawed, but really about something of little importance in today’s world, is so difficult for me to jettison, then why should I be surprised at how difficult it is to change outdated religious doctrines and creeds. These creeds and doctrines, many of which are 1500 yea...

‘There is no science in this world like physics. Nothing comes close to the precision with which physics enables you to understand the world around you. It's the laws of physics that allow us to say exactly what time the sun is going to rise. What time the eclipse is going to begin. What time the eclipse is going to end.’ Neil deGrasse Tyson - an American  astrophysicist , author, and  science communicator   I drove out of the parking lot in the mysteriously reduced sunlight during the recent solar eclipse. I knew why everything was looking different, why the light was muted, having that eerie glow. Yet still it  bothered me. When we reached home and turned on the television to watch what was happening elsewhere, the full majesty and mystery of this natural phenomenon became clear. I can well understand why there are people who travel great distances each time a total eclipse cones around, just to experience it again and again. The pictures of this ev...

I have always liked words from the time I saw Hermione Gingold in Gigi where she lovingly and slowly pronounced ‘win-dow-sill’’and ‘ap-ple-sauce’ lingering on each syllable. One of my favourite courses at university was an introductory course in Linguistics. And so I was delighted when I came across the recently-coined word ‘paraprosdokian’ [a word or phrase that brings about an unexpected twist to the interpretation of the previous part of the sentence].   One of the examples given that spoke to me was “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.” ~Billy Sunday [American Evangelist] How true. How very true! But at the same time, not the expected outcome.   Often we hear   someone say, “ My friend is a wonderful person, but they never go to church.” or conversely hear someone say “The church is full of hypocrites.” Both of those people have bought into the above paraprosdokian by expecting the first part...

The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.’ 1 John 4:20 [The Message Bible] A conversation happened between 2 sisters: Joelle, a cradle member of the United Church, says, “Our church is holding Vacation Bible School next week and the theme for this year is ‘Water’ Patsy, also a cradle member of the United Church, but a newly-minted member of the local Baptist congregation replies, ‘Oh, our Vacation Bible School was about ‘God!’ I have known both these sisters for many years, in particular, Joelle. Yet when this conversation was repeated to me by Joelle, it led to the first conversation I have ever had with her about anything to do even faintly with religion. [I must admit that during this conversation, I did get accused of ‘thinking’ too much, something I readily admit that as an introvert I do very easily!] Joelle was struggling with reconciling her understandings with the more rigid viewpoint now adopted by he...